Smash the NEA

WND.com ^ | 12-01-03 | Farah, Joseph

[Theodore R.]

Smash the NEA

Posted: December 1, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing the nation's largest teachers union – one that works energetically to elect candidates, lobbies the Congress on legislation, but files tax returns reporting zero political expenditures from member dues.

The National Education Association promised to cooperate, but its president, Reg Weaver, said the union "will not be silenced" by the audit.

It will be if there is any justice in America. It will be if the rule of law means anything in this country.

The NEA, unlike most other labor unions in the country, enjoys tax-exempt status. Therefore, it must report political expenses "direct and indirect" on its tax return because some of those expenses could be considered taxable. The IRS defines a political expense as "one intended to influence the selection, nomination, election or appointment of anyone to a federal, state, or local public office."

The Associated Press, which reviewed the NEA's filings from years 1993 through 1999, as well as hundreds of pages of internal NEA documents, found the 2.7 million-member union spent millions of dollars to help elect candidates, produce political training guides and gather teachers' voting records.

A July 1999 strategic plan stated the union budgeted $4.9 million for the 2000 election for such things as "organizational partnerships with political parties, campaign committees and political organizations."

Part of the money, the document said, would be spent on a "national political strategy" that involved "candidate recruitment, independent expenditures, early voting, and vote-by-mail programs in order to strengthen support for pro-public education candidates and ballot measures."

Landmark Legal Foundation filed complaints with the IRS seeking an audit and a criminal investigation of whether the NEA evaded taxes. Landmark got the NEA documents in a suit it filed that forced the IRS to disclose records identifying members of Congress who had asked it to audit political opponents.

Mark Levin, president of Landmark, hailed the IRS audit and said Monday that the NEA "has diverted tens of millions of dollars in membership dues to influence political campaigns, for which it hasn't paid a wooden nickel in taxes."

One of the political activities of the NEA is to ensure they have no competition in controlling and running government schools throughout America. The organization is especially active in efforts to make homeschooling illegal.

It's no wonder the NEA is so worried about homeschooling. It may be the biggest and best threat to the government education establishment. While most voucher and school-choice plans could easily be co-opted by the state, it's hard to imagine how government could ever corrupt homeschooling short of regulating it or outlawing it. And that's just what the state's partner in education crime – the NEA – is trying to do.

The NEA, which has demonstrated high marks only for dumbing down an entire generation of government school students, now wants to license parents to teach their own kids.

Look for the NEA to use its political chits to buy its way out of illegal, slush-fund involvement in politics. While the NEA is practically an arm of the Democratic Party, most Republicans don't understand the danger the organization represents to the nation, its children and our freedom.

It's clear the Democrats are running a protection racket for the powerful NEA. The NEA is running a protection racket for its employees. But more than that, the NEA is spearheading the drive for total government control over all education. The reason it does so is because government empowers the NEA. This is a union that has special privileges no other labor guild has ever enjoyed – including non-profit status for an organization that actively promotes, endorses and funds the candidacies of partisan political campaigns.

Besides battling homeschoolers and any other choice for parents who recognize the fundamental crises the NEA has created in our schools, the organization promotes bilingual education, homosexual, lesbian and transgendered education, environmental education, after-school care, before-school care and condom education. Reading, writing and arithmetic take a back seat or worse.

This is truly an extremist organization – one that would, if it could, change America's character in ways that would make it scarcely recognizable to freedom-loving people.

[OXENinFLA]

http://www.opensecrets.org/

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.asp?ID=D000000064

[ClearCase_guy]

If Bush can reform Medicare, reform Social Security, reform the Middle East, reduce terrorism, kill the NEA and revive the economy, he will cure most of the ills caused by the 20th century. Reagan won the Cold War which was perhaps the most important 20th century problem that needed fixing. If Bush completes the process, he will truly be among the "Top 5 Presidents".

[WorkingClassFilth]

Homeschooling BUMP!

[The Mayor]

files tax returns reporting zero political expenditures from member dues.

that is not possible

[Let's Roll]

Silence the NEA - that would be great - but I'll settle for them paying taxes as they should. That would go a long way to limiting their funds available to trash Dubya and other GOP candidates.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

And school vouchers are the stake through Dracula's heart for the NEA.

[upchuck]

To follow up on your comment number 2, this table from opensecrets.org is most instructive (pun intended :):

Election Cycle	Total Contributions	Dems	Repubs	% to Dems	% to Repubs
2004	$158,800	$117,350	$41,450	74%	26%
2002	$3,542,948	$3,209,573	$334,000	91%	9%
2000	$3,175,588	$2,879,450	$291,238	91%	9%
1998	$3,378,437	$3,192,337	$182,100	95%	5%
1996	$3,367,274	$3,235,589	$121,685	96%	4%
1994	$3,364,015	$3,312,215	$46,800	99%	1%
1992	$3,164,439	$3,034,434	$110,805	96%	4%
1990	$2,602,565	$2,429,605	$171,710	93%	7%
TOTAL	$22,754,066	$21,410,553	$1,299,788	94%	6%

METHODOLOGY: The numbers on this page are based on contributions of $200 or more from PACs and individuals to federal candidates and from PAC, individual and soft money donors to political parties, as reported to the Federal Election Commission. While election cycles are shown in charts as 1996, 1998, 2000 etc. they actually represent two-year periods. For example, the 2002 election cycle runs from January 1, 2001 to December 31, 2002. Data for the current election cycle was released by the Federal Election Commission on Monday, August 11, 2003.

Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics.
NOTE: Soft money contributions were not publicly disclosed until the 1991-92 election cycle and are not allowed in the 2003-2004 cycle.

Truly, the NEA is an evil machine Hell bent on destroying our country.

[OXENinFLA]

Thanks

i tried to post that but couldn't.

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[EdReform]

The National Education Association: Emphasis on the Ass

NEA doesn t show up in court; union fined $800,000 for intentional violations of state law

The Union That Killed Education

A Union by Any Other Name

The National Everything Association

Where Do My NEA Dues Go?

NEA Hastens Death of American Education

[upchuck]

Thanks i tried to post that but couldn't.

Thanks! FWIW, here's what I did:

I opened the page in my browser, looked at the source code, searched for 158,800 (one of the numbers in the table), backed up to the <table> tag, selected from there through the </table> tag, cut that and pasted it into the FR Posting Comment box.

[Question_Assumptions]

The best part is that if they are found to owe taxes on any of that money, they may be charged for those taxes, the interest on those taxes, and penalties for late payments. The interest, alone, could be quite impressive. That will starve them from money for the next few elections or they'll have to rape the teachers for more money to keep up.

[desertcry]

The NEA is one of the most evil organization in the US. They promote the decline of the educational system in the US, thus the future of this great country. Th leadership of this organization should be in jail for corruption.

[OXENinFLA]

Don't foget that the Pres. of the NEA & GLSEN are in cahoots together.....

---

http://www.projectspectrum.org/Archives/Speeches/nea.html

GLSEN, NEA REMARKS – Bob Chase, President of the National Educators Association

Good morning.

I join with you today not as Bob Chase but the president of the National Education Association – an organization of some 2.5 million people who work in public schools across the nation.

But to be honest, not every one of these 2.5 million members is pleased that I am here this morning. In fact, the week before this conference, I received dozens of e-mails begging me not to attend -- or condemning me for doing so, although not all E-mails were from our members.

It seems that last week, the Family Research Council launched a campaign over the Internet, alerting everyone on its list-serve about my being here today. It urged anyone who is an NEA member to write me in protest – and to withdraw his or her membership in the association, if I did come.

At the risk of depressing you, I’d like share a few excerpts from the letters I received.

Dear Bob,
As the son of a mother who taught school for thirty years, I am offended that you have chosen to be the keynote speaker at the GLSEN annual convention. From this decision, it is clear that the NEA leadership has chosen to embrace an activist approach to integrating homosexuality into public schools, regardless of what parents may think. Shame on you for being part of it.

Dear Bob,
I hope you sleep well at night knowing that the NEA’s actions are striking death blows at the very core of this great country’s educational system.

Dear Bob,
Using our school . . . To further an unsafe and abhorrent lifestyle choice is inexcusable and is a dangerous precedent. It is indoctrinating and recruitment, not teaching. God will not be mocked!

Dear Mr. Chase,
I am sending a message to you to let you know I am very disappointed that you are attending and speaking at the GLSEN conference. When are we as an organization going to be concerned about children and not about political issues?

Dear Mr. Chase,
I am a NEA member and I wish that the NEA would get back to its core business of representing teachers. You should not be representing yourself as the NEA president in any engagement that has an agenda other than teachers' rights, benefits, and working conditions.

I think you get the idea. And these were among the tamer letters in the bunch...................................

[desertcry]

Yeah, it makes sense, two perverted organizations have joined together to assault the future of our children. If nothing is done soon to counter the corrosive effects of the NEA and the homosexual organization, this great society, we call America will be no more.